Nature | Inspiration | Glorious Colours!

THE Barb Brown: Sometimes, It’s All in the Vision

As a designer, I like my own work. That is, I finish something, and if I’m not happy with it, it won’t ever get published. But every now and then, there is a design that so closely resembles my vision, and means so much, that I can barely stand it!

Some years ago, I had a call from a close friend of mine. Kim told me she had been given 3 months to “get her affairs in order”. We had a long talk, and I made plans to visit her at her place, a two day drive away. She mentioned that all her hair was pretty much gone, and her head was very cold! As a knitter, of course I knit her a hat! Not any hat, but a funky felted hat! A Kim hat. I wanted flowers and leaves on it, but only had time to knit a few if I was going to get the hat and the big cozy shawl done before I left. Knitter friends jumped to the pump, with envelopes containing petals. They arrived right before I had to leave on the long drive.

I spent one night at my Aunt’s house on Vancouver Island. She loved the hat, and the sentiment and the thought of all those knitters. Early the next morning, she went for her daily walk on the beach.

She came back to the house with a huge smile and a gift….an eagle had flown over, and a single feather had spiralled down to land at her feet. We both felt it was meant for the hat, and we sewed it on.

Kim loved her hat (and her shawl!).

She wore both weeding in her garden, going shopping, out for dinner. A year later, since she felt so much better, she passed it on to a friend going through breast cancer. Last I heard, it has been gifted to 3 others. Kim still snuggles under her cozy shawl though!

I felt like this feather needed to be remembered. I designed a shawl with Kim’s feather down the middle of the back, and used a stitch that looked like the waves on the beach where the feather had landed. The colours from Ancient Arts Yarn were the perfect match to my vision.

I called it In Flight, because that’s how I think of Kim…still flying! still smiling!

(If you need a comfort shawl for yourself or a friend, it’s a free pattern here on Ravelry)